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LONDON — A horse-drawn gun carriage bore the coffin of Margaret Thatcher to St. Paul’s Cathedral
yesterday for a ceremonial funeral that divided British opinion, much as the former prime minister
known as the Iron Lady stirred deep and conflicting emotions during her lifetime. In death, she
triggered an equally passionate debate over her legacy.

Dignitaries from around the world and from Britain’s political elite gathered for a service
regarded as austere and devout, reflecting her Methodist upbringing. Bells pealed over the city,
and a gun salute boomed from the Tower of London.

Some 700 military personnel lined the streets as the gun carriage processed from the church of
St. Clement Danes.

Thousands of people lined the streets behind barriers as the gun carriage passed by at a
measured 70 paces per minute. Some onlookers applauded, drowning out scattered boos. The coffin was
draped in the Union flag, crowned by a wreath of white flowers with a handwritten note: “Beloved
mother — always in our hearts.”

Thatcher was the country’s first female prime minister, and her radical, market-driven policies
and determination to crush labor-union power made her one of its most divisive leaders. She died of
a stroke last week at 87.

Even the nature of yesterday’s 55-minute ceremony — a state funeral in all but name — provoked
complaints about its cost and appropriateness. The last British politician to be accorded such an
accolade was Winston Churchill in 1965.

After the service, a hearse transported Thatcher’s coffin to a hospital in Chelsea before a
private cremation.